The politics in Lexington-Fayette, KY are vibrant and often contentious. The city has a mayor-council form of government and the mayor is elected to serve four year terms. In addition to the mayor, there are six city council members who serve four year terms as well. Currently, the mayor is Linda Gorton and she was first elected in 2018. The city council members for Lexington-Fayette include: Steve Kay, Jennifer Reynolds Mossburg, Kevin Stinnett, Peggy Henson, Shevawn Akers, and Chris Ford. The political landscape in Lexington-Fayette is varied and citizens here have strong opinions about local issues and candidates during election season.
The political climate in Lexington, KY is somewhat liberal.
Fayette County, KY is moderately liberal. In Fayette County, KY 59.2% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 38.5% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.3% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Fayette county remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 59.2% to 38.5%.
Fayette county voted Democratic in the four most recent Presidential elections, after 2000 and 2004 went Republican.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Lexington, KY is somewhat liberal.
Fayette County, Kentucky is moderately liberal.
Lexington-Fayette Metro Area is leaning liberal.
Kentucky is strongly conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Lexington, Kentucky: r r d d d D
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Lexington, KY
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 28,369 contributions totaling $6,755,584 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $238 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 7,650 contributions totaling $7,928,980 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $1,036 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)